Marriage By Faith (Different Parts written between 2010 and 2012)
Part I
Most of you who have stayed in contact with me know that the Lord has done
a lot of purifying in my heart concerning the matter of marriage during the
past two years. Two years ago, i was single, scared to death of a broken heart,
and too stubborn and proud to give up my commitment to singleness, even when i
felt like God was telling me to. Today, I am happily engaged to a man who is so
perfect for me that I didn't know such a person could exist... and it's all
thanks to my Creator (because he's the one who said 'It's not good for man to
be alone'). The story is a very long one, and i don't often have a lot of free
time, but I am going to try and write it out during the little free time that i
do have... so please bear with me as it is a piece by piece process.
Part II:
Well, as i think about it, the best
place to start is in my ninth grade Bible class. Mr V. (our Bible teacher) had
us do an exercise: write down the qualities you would want in your future
spouse. Most other girls had lists pretty long. I only had one required
quality: perfect. He broke us off into groups, and we shared our lists. The
other girls were shocked at mine, to say the least. They said: but nobody's
perfect! Hehe. That was my secret plan. Exactly... nobody was perfect, except
Jesus, and i was already happily married to Jesus. He was perfect. I already
had Prince Charming. I didn't need anybody else. This was my thinking all the
way through high school, then through the first two years of college.
During that time, not many peope
agreed with my thinking all too much. Everybody told me it would just be until
i met Mr. Right, and then this whole nun thing would end. They didn't know how
stubborn i was, i thought to myself. I might even reject mr. right just to
prove them wrong. In fact, i came up with a fool-proof plan. I wouldn't get
married unless God wrote something in the sky telling me to. That was it. It
was the only condition or sign that would do. I was pretty sure that God did
not want me to get married, so i didn't feel the least bit guilty about asking
for such a ridiculous sign. *sigh*
Then came my first quarter up at
UCLA. While this quarter was at once the fulfillment of most of my earthly
dreams at the time, it was also the quarter of doom for my beloved Protestant
Nunnery. I remember about two weeks before I left for UCLA... i was at my
coworker, Megan Huddleston's wedding. She had crayons and paper for the tables
at her wedding. Each of my coworkers/mutual guests at the wedding decided to
tease me about being the next one (to get married). I promptly took the
crazyons and wrote in big beautiful letters on her table... "LONG LIVE THE
PROTESTANT NUNNERY." I am 99.999999999999% Sure that everyone in heaven
was laughing hilariously at me during this time.
I moved into UCLA on a Saturday. The
next day, my close friend from high school, David Pritchett, invited me to go
to his church. I agreed, because i had seen him grow serious about his relationship
with God since going to the church, and i wanted to tell his pastor/ bible
study teacher that i admired what they were doing. They were doing a good job.
Their ministry, however, was probably out of the picture for me, mainly for two
reasons: 1) It was in Torrance, and i was not up for the commute 2) They asked
random strangers to study the Bible on campus, and i could not picture myself
doing that in ten million years. Again, heaven laughs at me.
Sunday, David drove me to church
early. He was going to a group Bible study before service. He was excited for
me to set up a Bible study with his "shepherd:" Gideon. I was willing
to do one Bible study, as long as it was on campus, i figured, why not check it
out? I was checking out all the Christian groups... then it happened. The
horrendously (then) and beautifully(now) inevitable thing happened. I met
Gideon Brian Avila Cabahug. If I had know the consequences of this meeting on
that day, with the person who i was on that day, I would have run for dear life.
I would have called my mother, demanded her to bring my beautiful VW bug back
up to UCLA, so i could drive home and started filling out the paperwork to
transfer to UCI. It would have been that drastic. But, alas, God in His
infinite wisdom did not show me everything. (I have discovered that He often
doesn't do that precisely because He is infinitely wise).
My first impression of him could not
be further from my most recent impressions of him (which are all of the best
sort :)). We sat down for Bible study, and he began singling me out, making
sure i could understand what he was saying, making sure i didn't have any
questions. He was being so overly polite and considerate of me being the new
person in the group, i was not quite sure what to do. Back at my other small
group, i was used to being the person who talked too much, and the Holy Spirit
was teaching me how to be quiet and listen. The fact that this Gideon guy was
trying to force me to talk showed me that no matter how much David had changed
since coming to this church, his Bible study teacher still needed to learn how
to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And it was all down hill from there.
When i showed up to Bible study that week, it was not with the most humble of
attitudes. I had it in my head that i needed to teach this guy a few things,
and of course, since he was the one who had invited me to Bible study, he had
it in his head that he needed to teach me a few things. Again, heaven was
laughing.
After my first week at UCLA, i had
been to three different Christian groups: Shepherd's Club (with Gideon),
Intervarsity, and Christian Students. I really liked Christian students. It was
on campus, one of the female leaders had taken me under her wing.... they met
on campus, it wasn't too small, they seemed to agree with own views a lot
theologically. It made sense in my head. Then i prayed about it. As i listened
for Gods direction, i heard that still quiet whisper: "Keep studying with
Gideon. I have called you to marry him." WHAT GOD?! I knew i must be off
this time. That wasn't from God. That must be an attack from the enemy. I
quickly pushed the thought from my mind, and said, "well, i'll go to the
Bible study, because i don't have a polite excuse not to this week." God
made sure i never had polite excuses. He had cleared my schedule that quarter.
So, i went to the second Bible study with the aim to help my new Bible study
teacher understand that i was not David Pritchett. So far, it felt like he was
treating me like i was David Pritchett #2. Interestingly, our conversation
lasted four or five hours. I told him my entire life testimony, and opened up
about many of my sin problems. He shared his whole life testimony, and opened
up about many of his sin problems. I came away thinking two things: First, i
observed that my strengths were his weaknesses and vice versa. Second i
observed that i had never talked that long with any boy i knew about anything
substantial the second time i met them. And the first seed of doubt was planted
in my head: could that marriage direction really have been God? By the next
Bible study i had grown so scared that this might be the case, i was just
looking for my first polite excuse to leave. Unfortunately, when i showed up, i
was greeted with the exact opposite. The top of the Bible study question sheet
said "The Wedding at Cana." To me, it was a sign confirming what i
had been denying in my head and heart. I knew i saw it as a sign. I had a
choice at that moment: run far away and just appear to be a completely weird person,
or stay and see what God had in store. I thought about it a second too long. My
whole body was getting ready to dash out of Powell Library when i thought: i
really don't want to explain this to David. I stayed for the Bible study. I
proceeded to spend the next two months avoiding the topic of marriage in
prayer, when every time i tried to listen to God, it seemed like all he wanted
to talk about.
hehe. If you read all of this, i
applaud you. I know I'm including way too many details, but I like this story
:). Anyways, I am growing hungry myself, so I shall have to continue another
time :D
Part III:
As God continued to wrestle with me
in prayer, i became stubborn. I was tired of thinking and praying about the
issue when there were so many other things in life to enjoy, so I gave God an
ultimatum (never a good idea btw): God, i always told you that if you wanted me
to give up my commitment to singleness for you that i would have to see writing
in the sky. That's what it's going to take for this to happen. Nothing more,
nothing less. And i promptly stopped listening on the subject. It was closed in
my heart.
For a whole two weeks.
I focused on school, and that's how
God got me. I had a huge debate for my education class on whether or not
preschool should be mandatory and funded by the state (Our position: yes on
both accounts). I had a debate partner. I let her choose when and where we
should meet to work on our debate material. She worked next to a Northern
Campus restaurant and got off of work at a certain time. So, we agreed to meet
at that time. And, as we sat there, studiously researching the pros and cons of
preschool, the impossible thing happened. My body was facing the building. She
was facing the outside world. She said, "I think they're writing something
in the sky." My head whipped up. I regained my composure. The thought that
ran through my head was: "this better not have anything to do with
marriage," in my heart, as soon as i thought that, i thought
"wouldn't it be so funny if it actually was the word 'marriage'"?
Then i started chastening myself for being paranoid. I turned around to look at
the writing. There were trees blocking the middle of the word. The first letter
looked like a "H." The last two letters looked like "GE."
My thoughts? "Cool, i don't think that word has anything to do with
marriage, let's sit back down and ignore it." My debate partner's
thoughts? Curiosity. She kept watching to see what it said. Then, out popped
the five words that would change my life forever: "I think it says
'marriage.'"
Jordan's brain: What?! *turn around*
Shoot! That's not an H! It's an M! And... A!R!R!I!A!G!E! *hears Holy Spirit
laughing* I don't have time for this. Should i tell my debate partner what's
going on right now? Would she understand? I don't think so. Is she a Christian?
I need to talk to Amy. That means i need to finish this debate research. Who
would write marriage in the sky? I can't believe I'm actually seeing this. God,
this is not fair!
I nonchalantly turned back to my
debate partner: "interesting, i wish we could see the rest." (trees
were in the way). We finish up our debate research. I started walking back to
my dorm. As I'm walking back, Im just ignoring heaven, because all i hear
coming from up there is a whole bunch of laughter. i look up in the sky again,
this time, i see more writing. it's about prop 8. i conclude that the word i
saw earlier either had "save" or "equal" in front of it,
but neither my debate partner nor myself could see that because of the trees.
(for those of you who dont remember, prop 8 was concerning making gay marriage
in california illegal once again. The proposition was passed, and i have often
wondered, being the narcissist that i am, if God did not allow the proposition
and entire political fight just to write marriage in the sky for me. I wouldn't
be surprised actually. Please forgive me for my narcissism!)
Part IV
After marriage had been written in
the sky, it was a downhill fight. God had won. Jordan had lost. It was not
right, and it was not fair, but that's how it was. After I returned to my dorm
that fateful day, I found that my best friend Amy Reynolds was online in
London. I was finally at the point where I needed to talk to someone. I really
wanted someone to tell me that God didn't work this way. God doesn't write
things in the sky, and God doesn't reveal who you're going to marry to you
before the male initiates some type of courtship. Guess who I should not have
talked to. Amy Michelle Reynolds. One of Amy Michelle Reynolds prayer topics
for me was indeed that some day God would have it in His plan for me to get
married. As I told her all about everything that had been happening, she was
both excited and a bit worried. It all seemed to be happening a bit too fast,
and it was happening when she was half way across the world. This couldn't
really be God's will, could it? I couldn't agree with her more. At the same
time, she was really excited that I might be getting married. She agreed to
pray for me. When I talked to her again in three days, She said that every time
she prayed for me, the Lord put this verse on her heart:
"For all things work together
for good for those who love God and who are called according to His
purpose."
Nice and encouraging, right? Well,
up until the day she told me this, I always thought this verse was encouraging.
However, this time, when she shared it, all that stuck out to me was that last
phrase "and who are called according to His purpose." His purpose?!
His purpose?! If God's purpose for me was marriage to Gideon, I did not want to
be called according to this purpose! GAAAAAHHH! That was not the verse I was
looking for. I had been hoping that maybe she would open up her devotional to
the verse, "A wicked and a perverse generation asks for a sign..." so
that the whole marriage in the sky thing could be nullified. But no.
"Called according to His purpose." Sigh. O.K. God. Your purpose, not
mine. You know I only want your purpose. You know I only wanted to be a nun
because I was one hundred percent sure that was your purpose. O.K. God.
(Begrudging obedience.). But God, you better not expect me to do anything about
this. I don't know why you even told me this. Maybe to prepare me, but God I've
heard about people who say that You told them who they were going to marry, and
in the end, they were just being decieved by their own fleshly desires. God,
this could still be me, maybe that little five year old girl in me who really
wanted to be sleeping beauty and have Prince Philip come rescue her is still
buried underneath all my Protestant Nunnery rhetoric, and now she is screaming
to get out. God, this could still be the case. I don't think it is, but a small
part of me would rather that be true. And, so God, if you want this to happen,
you better lay the same thing on his heart and he had better initiate
everything. I have always believed that the male should initiate everything. I
can't marry someone who can't lead. O.K., God?
These were my prayers, and my terms
of obedience. As you might suspect by now, God had different plans and
different terms.
Two weeks later, as I sat down to
pray before Bible study, the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart: Now's the time
to tell him." I think that probably if my heart had ever wanted to just
hit God it was in that moment. This was taking it too far. Tell Gideon? Tell
Gideon? Tell Gideon? No. no. no. This was going to have to be clearer than
writing in the sky. There were too many reasons not to. First, I am a female
studying the Bible with him, alone. This already goes against common sense-- at
least the good, Calvary common sense I was raised with. Bringing this whole
marriage thing into the picture could really open the door up for me to be
taken advantage of, for one of us to develop feelings, to any plethora of
disasters. Secondly, I was not attracted to him ( to be honest, I saw all guys
as brothers and didn't think about them physically at all, and Gideon was no
different. When I talk about attraction, I knew that if I was attracted to a
guy's heart, physical attraction would follow). If we were going to get married,
there was a lot of work that God was going to have to do on his heart first (I
remember when I prayed this, I heard God chuckle and say, "what about your
heart?" I also remember replying "well, maybe you have a little work
to do on my heart, but it's definitely not as much." ROFL.) Third, I did
not want him to feel forced. Also, I did not want him to think that I was just
coming to church or to Bible study because I was interested in him. I did not
want him to think that if he felt differently that I would insist on my way and
create division in the church. I did not want us to be in disagreement and for
it to affect the Body of Christ. The last thing I wanted was to bring division
to the Body of Christ. These were the biggest, most logical reasons I had for
not wanting to tell him, these and the fact that it was just plain crazy.
Anywho, I went to Bible study, and
it was a completely different topic. There was nothing in the Bible study about
marriage. There was not an ounce or a hint of anything that would confirm what
I felt the Holy Spirit had put on my heart. So, I gladly walked back to my dorm
started planning on getting psychological or spiritual counseling to help me
know God's voice better. Haha. Haha. Haha. I had forgotten that there was a Genesis
Symposium at the church that night. When I arrived at the Genesis symposium,
the speaker on chapter one mentioned that one thing God had taught him in
Genesis chapter one was that God didn't have to use man to complete his
mission, God wanted and desired to use man for his mission (In Genesis chapter
one, God's mission is to rule over the earth). God didn't have to use man, but
He wanted to. I sat there and pondered whether or not God was speaking to me
about my current situation. Yes, it could be true that God didn't have to use
me if this marriage was His plan, and yes it could be true that God wanted to
use me for this mission, but at the same time, wasn't God's real mission saving
people? Wasn't I reading a little too far into this? Decisively. Until the next
message. Miss Ana Lucia got up. She read her title, "God said, 'It is not
good for man to be alone.'" I was like a dead duck. She was Gideon's
sheep, so she proclaimed that one word like the world was going to end if she
didn't convey God's message. It was powerful. It was strong. It was... exactly
what i didn't want to hear. I remember just looking at Gideon's back (he was
sitting in front of me). I don't think i heard another message that night
(sorry, Ate!). Darn it. I didn't need counseling. I needed to talk to Gideon. I
didn't want to talk to Gideon. I still had perfectly valid reasons that most
anyone would support for not talking to Gideon. If I asked anyone for advice,
they would tell me not to do it. But, God had made His wishes clear in my
heart. Why God? Why this route? This route is dangerous! "Daughter, do you
trust me with your heart? Have you ever really trusted me with your heart? You
want to be a nun because you know that I will never break your heart. You know
that I will never hurt you. You know the truth. You abide in me. But, if I lead
you through heartbreak, will you still trust in my goodness? If I allow you to
be hurt, will you still come running to me? Do you trust me when there is a lot
of risk involved? Do you trust me when it's not safe?" As I talked to God,
he exposed the fear in my heart: the fear of heart break, the fear of intimacy,
the fear of love and the hurt that can come from love. As I later dwelt on
this, God also exposed that my marriage dream was not to be married. It was not
the normal marriage dream, it was very abnormal, but that was what I wanted,
because my fear of being hurt was so great. My fear of making a mistake was
also very great, too many people made mistakes when they fell in love. Too many
people allowed themselves to be controlled by their fleshly emotions and ended
up making mistakes, throwing away a lot of their opportunities in life. I
didn't ever want to make those mistakes. I wanted to be pure... but not out of
a real desire to please God... rather out of prideful reasons. I didn't want to
be another number or statistic. I wanted to be the exception. I have always
wanted to be the exception, and the easiest way to not make a mistake was to
avoid human love altogether. So, I did.
As God began to expose my heart, He
began to show me that telling Gideon about my conviction was about practically
placing my heart in God's hands. It was about faith. My roommate was going
skydiving for her birthday that weekend, and I felt like God used that to put
this metaphor on my heart: Telling Gideon was like going heart sky-diving.
Jesus was my parachute, and even if the parachute didn't work on the way down,
if my heart splattered on the ground, He still had the power to resurrect me. I
had to trust that, but I didn't want to trust that.
As the symposium finished up, I told
God that if Gideon was free, I would try, but if he was busy, I was not going
to bother him. He wasn't free. I didn't bother him. I also found that once I
got home, I couldn't sleep. This was abnormal. I can always sleep. I'm known
for how well I sleep. Someday, they might even put me in the Guiness book of
world records for my sleeping. This is quite possible. Anyways, you get the
point. Being deprived of sleep was not a pleasant experience. I tossed and
turned, and prayed. But praying was hard, because I hadn't followed God's
direction. Finally, I realized: God was not going to let me sleep until I took
care of this. So, I texted Gideon. I told him we needed to have a serious talk.
We set up a meeting for Sunday after the Symposium finished. Finally, I fell
asleep.
lol. My favorite part of the stoy is
next, and it's probably going to be equally as long as this note, so I am going
to have to break it up.
Part V:
Saturday I spent the whole day in my
dorm, listening to praise and worship music, praying, and doing laundry :). God
gave me the most absolute peace that I had ever had, and that I have
experienced only a few times since. I knew that I was taking a leap of faith in
Him and Him alone, and that come what may, He would be with me. Sadly, I often
lost sight of this peace during the journey that would come, but I think God
knew that I needed it to get me started.
Jordan: "Gideon, i believe God
has called me to be your helpmeet."
Gideon yells: "PRAISE THE LORD,
HALLELUJAH! That's great news! What do you want to start doing first? Most
people start just with the Bible studies, and then they start
fishing....blah...blah....blah"
Inside Jordan's head: "Wow!
Definitely not the reaction I expected. You're happy about this? Why are you
happy about this? I don't understand. Wait, you want me to get involved in the
ministry? I know that will probably have to happen, but shouldn't we seek God's
timing about all that? WAIT! GOD, HE MISUNDERSTOOD ME! HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND!
PRAISE THE LORD HALLELUJAH INDEED!!!! I'D A MILLION TIMES RATHER GET INVOLVED
IN THE MINISTRY. No marriage, teach the Bible, sounds like a good deal."
Holy Spirit: I didn't bring you this
far to chicken out now.
Inside Jordan's head: "Did the
Holy Spirit just tell me i'm chickening out? Is that even biblical?"
Gideon (watching all this emotion
play across Jordan's face): "But, I'm sensing that you might be meaning
something different, Jordan...what were you thinking?
Jordan: Gideon, I believe God has
called me to marry you.
Gideon: *eyes get wide and roll into
back of head* "oooooooooohhh.... i have it all wrong, huh?"
Jordan: *nods head*
Gideon: umm, I'm not sure how to
react that. No one's ever told me that before.
Jordan: That's good, and I'm sorry,
i know this is probably the most awkward conversation I'll have in my whole
life, but here's why..... summarizes story.....i think the next step is that
you should pray about this and get back to me.
Gideon: yes, yes, that is a good
idea. Don't worry about this anymore, Jordan... you've done your part. Leave
the rest to me and God.
Jordan: Ok!
And so the adventure began.
That week, during Bible study,
Gideon confirmed that he believed that God had called me to eventually get married,
but he wasn't sure when or to whom. I said: great! Because, for a week of
prayer, that was a pretty fair place for him to be. However, when he said
"when" I was like: oh no, no matter what it won't be any time soon.
I'm not ready for that. I hope he doesn't think i thought it was supposed to be
soon................ LOL.
Thus began the month and a half of
me asking God if it really indeed was him, or if God had just been doing all
that to tell me to get married. It was a busy month and half......
Part VI
About a month and a half after I
told Gideon about marriage, he was still struggling to teach me the Bible, but
was not really getting through to me because I saw myself as his equal, not his
student. I came to Bible study faithfully--not eager to learn from him, but
rather eager to help him see the errors of his ways. I will admit, that at this
time, I already knew ALL the things God was going to have change in HIM before
we could even think about marriage. As far as I was concerned, there must not
be much that needed to be changed in me, since God was confiding this whole
thing in me.
ROFL. Ooooh, Jordan.
Anyways. I didn't know it, but
Gideon's honest point of view about what I had told him was that it was crazy.
He had been in the ministry for six years (he and our pastor had pretty much
built the church together), and I was a newbie. Of course it wasn't God's will
for us to get married, we weren't "equally yoked" spiritually. He
asked our pastor if it was ok to tell me he was 100% sure that he wasn't the
one I was going to marry, and our pastor said "yes." That was all the
confirmation he needed. He wanted to tell me because he felt it was the only
way he was going to be able to teach me anything. So one morning after Bible
study, he sat me down and humbly explained that he had many faults, and he
probably wasn't the best guy for me to marry, and God probably had someone else
much better in mind for me. He said that he was 100% sure he was not the one. I
think he expected me to be a little sad about this, but I wasn't. I cheerily
said, "ok!" Because he was telling me exactly what I wanted to hear
at the time.
On my way home, however, my state of
complete "ok-ness" with the situation started turning into confusion.
As I remembered back to how I told Gideon the story of all the signs God had
given me, I noticed that I had left out all the ones that were specific to him,
only telling him the ones that were specific to marriage. I started to remember
that as my Grandma had been helping me wrap Christmas presents, when she was
wrapping his, she had asked me if God had brought any special young men into my
life at UCLA. She didn't know who the present was for or anything that had
happened, so I was shocked and took it as another sign of confirmation. I
started asking God why he had needed to include Gideon in this if He was just
trying to tell me not to be a nun. Wasn't that a little dangerous, to use a
young woman's single Bible teacher to teach such a lesson? Couldn't this be
dangerous for my heart in the future? What if I did start having feelings for
him? I didn't want to have feelings for him! I didn't even want to get married!
Why had God given me specific signs concerning him? I prayed that God would
give me a seperate confirmation so that I absolutely knew this was from him. I
was pretty sure Gideon wouldn't be 100% sure about something without some
scripture to back it up, so the confirmation I asked for was that Gideon would
share the verses with me that made him 100% sure. I figured that if I knew
these Bible verses, at least I could recite them to myself and use them to
fight against any feelings that might develop in the future if that became a
problem.
The next morning, when I was doing
my devotions, the key verse was: "God makes everything beautiful in His
time." from Ecclesiastes 0.0. Not the answer I was looking for. I proceded
to ask Gideon about his verses, and to my utter dismay, he said, and i quote:
"Jordan, you are just going to have to trust me. I have struggled a lot
with knowing my own voice from God's voice from the enemy's voice a lot. I know
that this doesn't 'come from me or the enemy. I am 100% sure it is from God."
I had a smile on my face as I
climbed in my car and said, "o.k. I'm just trying to put the nails on the
coffin for this issue because I don't want it resurfacing again." But
inside, I was screaming. I was mad at him. I was mad at God. This definitely
wasn't fair. I had asked for confirmation to protect myself and God wasn't
giving it to me. I wanted to trust that Gideon knew God's voice, and I wanted
him to be right, but everything that he had said confirmed the opposite of what
he was saying to my spirit. It was all so complicated that I wanted to stop
thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the more I got depressed. It
was actually the first time in my life I questioned if God was really good...
for if He was really good, how could He have lead me to this place? I wanted
some answers. When I got home, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to me that the
answer was in a book I had been avoiding, sitting in my bedroom. Someone had
given it to me, and I really hadn't had the time or the desire to read it. I
ignored the prompting of the Holy Spirit and just tried to forget everything,
enjoying the time I was spending with my family instead. That night when I went
back to my room, the conviction that my answer was in that book was so
overwhelming that I couldn't fight it. I picked up the book and looked at the
table of contents. There was a chapter on "bearing fruit," and I
thought that topic was nice and objective and pretty far away from the issue of
marriage, so I decided to open up the book to that chapter. As I was reading,
it was mostly stuff I had been taught before, so I started skimming. Then, the
author started talking about how immature Christians will sometimes claim they
can hear God's voice without having scripture to confirm it. Again, if this was
God's answer, I didn't like it. It made my life complicated. God had been
laying on my heart to fast, so I decided to do a 30 day liquid only fast to get
some clarity on this issue. The last day of the fast would be Valentine's Day.
The day i celebrated the anniversary of my non-denominational nunnery. I
realized that this would be the seventh year anniversary. Then I realized that
seven was God's number of completion. I didn't like that realization either.
During the first week of the fast, God layed it on my heart again that I would
marry Gideon, but he would help me to see him through a different lense because
He had other things He wanted to work on in my heart. The next time I saw
Gideon, to my complete amazement, I saw him only as a Bible teacher. At the end
of the day I went home thinking: wow, I didn't think of the marriage issue once
today! Praise Jesus! Two days later, through Gideon, God made it clear what He
did want to deal with in my heart through the fast: He wanted to deal with my
pride.
God did a lot of humbling during
that fast. By the time it was over, I didn't want to go back to eating because
I was on such a spiritual high, but I knew I had to. Almost everyone was
worried about me, my roommates (who had never heard of someone fasting for that
long before) included. I however, had honestly never felt closer to God. During
the fast, I had started teaching Bible studies at UCLA, and I loved it... but
with doing that, i was spending a lot more time with Gideon, because it meant
getting a lot more involved in church.
After the fast ended, Gideon gave me
the assignment of writing my life testimony. He wanted me to write about my
whole life, in detail. So I did. Forty pages worth. I had felt extremely
misunderstood by him up to this point, so I made sure to emphasize certain
things so that he could understand who I really was. The other students that he
taught also were writing messages for the upcoming church retreat; and we would
all get a study room together. His other students left a lot, but he and i
would stay in the study room- him reading and highlighting the parts of my
testimony he wanted me to share, and me working on other hw, there just to
clarify if he needed me to. A lot of misunderstandings we had about each other
were worked through during that time, and with those things out of the way, my
heart began to struggle with feelings for him. I began to understand that
everything he did, he did out of a heart of love for Jesus and for Jesus'
sheep. He was very sincere in his desire to serve the Lord, and misunderstood
by a lot of people. It would not be until much later that I came to understand
how misunderstood by someone I thought he was on the same page with-our pastor.
It was his heart of love for Jesus that made me really start to struggle with
feelings though, and I didn't like that at all. I didn't know what to do. Even
if it was God's will, it obviously wasn't God's time, so my heart was jumping
the gun. I eventually tried to stop studying with him and studied with another
female instead. This didn't help, however, because by that time we were working
at the same job, had a lot of the same classes (as history majors) and still
saw each other every week at church. God began to teach me that I had to choose
to love God with all of my heart no matter what situation I was in. Even if the
situation never got better, even if he was always there, I had to choose to
love God by fighting those emotions.
It took me about a year to get to
the point where I felt like the emotions were gone, where if I thought about
Gideon marrying someone else, there was not only no jealousy in my heart, but I
felt like I could rejoice because it would be right. God taught me a lot about
my own heart during that time, and when I finally reached the point of completely
surrendering everything to Him, well.... that was when He FINALLY started
working on Gideon's heart.
Part VII:
Not that this story needs to be any
longer... but upon reflection I decided that I summarized a bit too much during
the end of the last note, so I must go into a little more detail on the
"final surrender," stage of my learning...
I have heard the story of Rack,
Shack, and Benny multiple times in my life from multiple sources (Veggie Tales
not being the least of these sources); however, when I studied the third
chapter of Daniel inductively via Shepherd's Church, God touched my heart
through this story in relation to my own story in ways I didn't think was
possible. When I read about Rack, Shack, and Benny proclaiming to
Nebuchadnezzar that "even if..." their God did not save them, I was
reminded of my own "even if..." promise. I remembered that the
weekend before I told Gideon that I was supposed to marry him, I felt so much
peace, that even if I was wrong, and i fell splat on the ground, my savior had
the power to resurrect me. Somewhere along the way, I had lost sight of that
faith or let go, and replaced it instead with worry. Then, as the story
continued, and Jesus appears in the fire with the three men, two things hit me
concurrently: 1)Jesus let them fall in the fire, restated, because they
followed Jesus, they ended up in the fire; 2) Jesus was with them in the fire.
The picture of these two things helped me see clearly that, yes, my emotions
had felt like a fiery furnace for the past year or so, but at the same time,
Jesus had been with me in that fire, and Jesus had been using that fire to
purify heart. When I saw those two things, it was like immediate freedom from
the entire struggle. Jesus had been with me and He had been purifying my heart,
and he had used Gideon to do it. Praise the Lord. Go ahead and let Gideon marry
someone else. I could even marry someone else. Whoever God wanted, whenever he
wanted... but this situation no longer had any power over me! I was honored
that God had allowed me to work with one of his precious sons so closely, and
used him so powerfully in my life. I didn't need anything else. It was great!
When I showed up to Bible study to share this testimony with my fellow sisters,
I glanced across the street, and I saw a rose bush, with a clump of roses in
the shape of a perfect heart. My heart jumped. Jesus was reaffirming how much
he loved me. Everything was finally perfect....
In the mean time, the whole next
week, every time i saw Gideon, he would tell me to "just shoot him."
I was mystified by this: what was wrong. He kept on saying he just wanted to
die. What? Why?
hehe. The tables had turned. After we had
graduated, there had been quite a series of events, that had caused something
of an explosion in Gideon's heart.
1) He had been praying about the
type of wife he wanted, telling God he wanted her to be wise, but
free-spirited, to have a lot of heart, but not to be controled by her emotions,
along with many other details that i have since forgotten. Apparently, God
showed him in prayer that he was describing me.
2) I gave him a big hug after we
graduated together. Before, because of my struggles, i had made sure to never
hug, only handshake, but at graduation, I gave him a big hug, because I felt
like he was the only person who had really witnessed or seen my entire
experience at UCLA. He was the only one who knew what I had really been
through, and in many ways, I was the only one who knew a lot of what he had
been through in the past two years. I felt it was an appropriate expression of
joy and celebration over our accomplishments. Apparently, my emotion caught him
off guard (because i rarely showed him my emotions), and stirred up some of his
own emotions.
3) Our pastor gave the direction for
me to stop studying one on one with Gideon and to join a small girls group led
by one of the sisters instead. Apparently I was "graduating" in more
ways than one (in the congregation, the pastor putting you in a small group
signaled that he saw your committment to that body of Christ, and through the
small group you were supposed to become more rooted in the church). Gideon lost
a few other students too, but for a reason he couldn't explain, he seemed to
miss me the most.
All of these things were more than
Gideon could bear. First, he tried taking me out to lunch to try and tell me...
but he made the mistake of asking me how I was doing, and I happily started
telling him how I was "free" of my emotions for him. I LOVE GOD'S
SENSE OF HUMOR :). To make things worse for him, we worked together, so we saw
each other every night from 2-9. I was plaguing him. Finally, one night (he
normally slept over at our job because it was also his job to drive the
students to school in the morning), he asked our boss for the night off. He got
off of work the same time I did and told me that we needed to talk about
something serious. I knew something had been bothering him, and was really curious
as to what it was, but at the time I definitely did not believe it was me.
First, I had one hundred percent confidence that if he ever did think he was
supposed to marry me, he would definitely tell our pastor first, and then he
would plan something elaborate to tell me. It would not be a last minute
"night off" kind of deal. Second, there was a plethora of other
things this could be about, perhaps some new issue had come up in the church,
or something was wrong with his family, or any number of things. He asked me
where I wanted to go, and we looked for a starbucks, but the one we were going
to stay at was closing, so we ordered our coffee, and then went and drove
through McDonald's for some french fries, and he parked in the parking lot of a
local mall. All the while, I remain curious, but determined to let him talk
when he wants to talk. He spent a good hour circling around the elephant in the
room, trying to hint, or to get me to guess, but any hint he gave me, I would
not read. So far in our relationship, I had been the instigator of awkward
conversations. If he had something awkward to talk about, it was his turn to
instigate. I was not going to be the one to start it.
Plus, I had spent too long hoping
for this exact time to come. I had approached too many conversations believing
they were going to be the ones, only to be disappointed. One of the ways i knew
I had overcome the struggle was that I came into this conversation not
expecting it. When he started hinting that way, for my own sake, I stopped my
heart from going to that place of expectation. If it was disappointed again,
that would mean there was still work to do. I was done. I believed I was free.
Finally, He looked at me and he said, "You know how I told you I was one
hundred percent sure that God didn't want you to be my wife?" I nodded a
very clear, "yes." He continued, "Well, now I can't see myself
happily married to anybody except you." You could have heard a pin drop.
There were a thousand and one things running across my mind. Was this really
from God? Had he told our pastor? This didn't seem like the way our pastor
would orchestrate such a meeting. How had this happened? Now? Was God giving me
back an Isaac I had been willing to sacrifice on an altar? I proceeded to
bombard him with this line of questioning. He confessed that this was the first
time in six years that he had done something so significant without our
pastor's approval. We concluded that for the sake of unity in the body of
Christ, he needed to approach our pastor about the matter before we did
anything else. Yes, yes, my head was full of all the "rights and
wrongs" of the situation, trying to make sure we were on the right path,
that we didn't make any mistakes in light of this confession. But Gideon's mind
was going down a very different path. He told me that he loved me and was
wondering if I felt the same way. I told him the only thing keeping me from
falling head over heels in love with him had been the fear of being there
alone. That was quite the confession for me. Now that we had that knowledge, we
were secure. Whatever lay around the next bend for us, at least we knew the
truth. Perhaps our pastor would not approve, or perhaps he would suggest a long
period of waiting to make sure our hearts were pure about this. But at least we
could face that with the knowledge that we loved each other secure in our
hearts.
At this point, there was no turning
back for either of us. We talked every night for the next week for hours on the
phone (Thank Jesus we both had sprint cell phones and unlimited cell to cell
coverage!), and within a week, he asked me out on our first day, and within
another two weeks he had proposed (quite on accident and without a ring because
he couldn't afford one yet). Every week he looked for a chance to talk to our
pastor, but our pastor was too busy planning summer conferences. By the time
the conferences were over, Gideon had the conviction that whether or not our
pastor approved of the relationship, he needed to leave the church. There were
things established in the church that were keeping him from growing or
expanding in his relationship with God, namely: the high level of control the
pastor had. He believed God's time for him at the church had come to an end,
and when I prayed for confirmation, God gave the scripture that says, "Go,
leave your father's household, his people," etc. So, we left. And we
started a new walk of faith together, into our official engagement, and
eventually into our marriage.
To be honest, that journey has been
a roller coaster. We've had some really high times, and some really low times.
Planning a wedding is already a big enough task without one person losing their
job. Maintaining a Godly relationship is already enough work without a huge
burden of condemnation, doubt, and guilt clouding it because one man doesn't
believe it's from God. Having my own deep issues had been plenty enough of them
without learning about Gideon's issues. And like Chris Norman says, there are
days when it seems like our equation is "two sinners under one roof=mass
chaos." But there is also a new equation that Gideon and i have found, an
equation made possible only by God's grace in our lives, and our daily
acknowledgement of it: "two sinners under the blood of one lamb = one
unstoppable team." And I believe that's what happens when you marry by
faith. You find your teammate for life. Your story might look a lot different
than ours (hopefully no one else is audacious enough to demand writing in the
sky from God)... but I believe that's part of God's plan for his children, to pair us up,
male and female, in such unique ways that when someone else sees us, they see
the glory of God in us, not just one of us, but in both of us together.
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